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In timely and incisive analysis, our experts parse the latest development news and devise practical solutions to new and emerging challenges. Our events convene the top thinkers and doers in global development.

Accountability is rightly at the center of the conversation regarding how to improve governance systems, particularly health and education systems. But efforts to address accountability deficits often focus primarily on improving what can be counted and verified—what we term “accounting-based accountability.”

Internationally set goals and guidelines directly influ­ence the setting of health care priorities at the national level, affecting how limited resources are generated and allocated across health care needs. The Working Group on Incorporating Economics and Modelling in Global Health Goals and Guidelines has brought together disease specialists, policymakers, economists, and modelers from national governments, international organizations, and academic institutions across the globe to address these issues, to take stock of current approaches, and make recommendations for better practice.

The World Health Organization routinely develops and issues guidelines on how best to prevent, diagnose, and treat particular medical conditions. The guidelines are developed through a process determined by the WHO Guidelines Review Committee—a key part of which involves systematic evidence appraisal using the GRADE approach.

As the organization responsible for setting international standards on anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT), the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has encouraged countries to design measures that protect the integrity of the financial system and support financial inclusion. But it has also received criticism that poor implementation of its standards can undermine financial access.

The Kunming-Vientiane railway is an anchor investment of the Chinese government’s Belt and Road initiative. This case study will assess the rail project along four dimensions: economic implications; procurement arrangements; labor; and environmental and social safeguards. In each of these areas, evidence from the railway project suggests that Chinese policy and practice could be better aligned with the practices of other sources of multilateral and bilateral development finance.

Hailed as one of the largest publicly funded health insurance programs in the world, India’s “Modicare” has, since its launch a little more than six months ago, made universal healthcare coverage an election theme for the first time in the country’s history.

Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) face severe economic challenges. Which policy and programmatic approaches will be most effective in supporting IDPs to overcome these challenges and make progress toward self-reliance depends in part on the urban-rural composition of IDP populations. By analysing the existing known locations of IDPs in developing countries, we show that there is large variation in urban-rural IDP compositions across countries.

Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) face severe economic challenges. Which policy and programmatic approaches will be most effective in supporting IDPs to overcome these challenges and make progress toward self-reliance depends in part on the urban-rural composition of IDP populations. By analysing the existing known locations of IDPs in developing countries and visualizing them in an interactive map, we show that there is large variation in urban-rural IDP compositions across countries.

The next global pandemic is a matter of when, not if. Preparing for this inevitability requires that policy­makers understand not just the science of limiting dis­ease transmission or engineering a drug, but also the practical challenges of expanding a response strategy to a regional or global level. Achieving success at such scales is largely an issue of operational, strategic, and policy choices—areas of pandemic preparedness that remain underexplored.

The next pandemic is a matter of when, not if. Preparing for this inevitability requires that policymakers understand not just the science of limiting disease transmission or engineering a drug, but also the practical challenges of expanding a response strategy to a regional or global level. Achieving success at such scales is largely an issue of operational, strategic, and policy choices—areas of pandemic preparedness that remain underexplored.

As low- and middle-income countries shift away from donor support, their challenge will be finding a way to aggregate demand in order to achieve the benefits that the pooled purchasing arrangements of vertical health programs now provide. As a first step in tackling this challenge, much can be learned from a diverse group of pooled procurement initiatives that have developed over the past 40 years in high-, middle-, and low-income countries. This note reviews the rationale and functions of these initiatives, notes their potential benefits and barriers, and draws lessons regarding how best to incorporate pooled pharmaceutical purchasing models into the design and implementation of health financing reforms in countries in transition.

The report considers three different channels through which Basel III can affect financial stability and devel­opment in EMDEs: (1) effects on the volume, compo­sition, and stability of capital flows arising from the implementation of Basel III in advanced economies; (2) effects on financial stability and a level playing field from the adoption of the Basel framework by the home countries of affiliates of foreign banks operating in EMDEs; and (3) effects on financial stability, broad access to financial services, and deepening of local financial systems from the implementation of Basel III by EMDEs themselves.

With the goal of driving down drug costs, governments across the globe have instituted various forms of pharmaceutical price control policies. In this paper, we examine the theoretical and empirical effects of one implementation of pharmaceutical price controls, in which the Indian government placed price ceilings on a set of essential medicines.

A CGD Task Force assessed the implica­tions of Basel III for EMDEs and provided recommen­dations for both international and local policymakers to make Basel III work for these economies. This brief summarizes the key findings and recommendations.

The proposed FY 2020 budget changes would be the most significant overhaul of USG humanitarian structures in decades. The proposal in its current form is unlikely to get much traction in Congress, where it is seen on both sides of the aisle as dramatically weakening US leadership on refugees. In light of other moves by the administration—like slashing refugee resettlement numbers and treating asylum seekers roughly—that is a legitimate and vital concern. There is ample reason to approach the proposal with caution, particularly the idea of stripping away the refugee bureau’s resources.

This paper analyses the grades awarded in the 65 primary reviews undertaken by the UK Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) over its first eight years of operation, from 2011 to 2018. It finds that ICAI has directly evaluated £28bn of UK aid over the period. Around four-fifths of spend assessed was graded as “satisfactory” (amber/green) or “strong” (green). The findings from ICAI reviews, and this report, should inform the UK Government’s aid allocations between departments at the forthcoming spending review.